Many occasions arise necessitating a search. An airplane or boat may be missing and feared down or disabled. People on the ground such as hikers may not have returned at an expected time. Responsible authorities may institute a search in these situations. A search may be conducted in the air, over water, on land, or a combination thereof.
In order to avoid missing a portion of a search area, the searching entity, for example, an airborne, sea going, or land based vehicle, will follow a pattern in an attempt to cover all of the search area. Also, the search may be performed by several search vehicles in a coordinated effort using visual or radio contact. However, many factors may prevent an effective coverage of the entire search area. For example, the search vehicle may not precisely follow the pattern and may not perform the search at an optimal speed. In the case of an airborne search, the altitude may not be effective for either a given search vehicle providing a limited visual platform or size of the entity for which the search is being conducted. The efficiency of the search may be degraded by more than one search vehicle searching the same area.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an apparatus and method for conducting a search that provides an effective and efficient search. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.